Company briefs

Telecommunications company iiNet
’s largest shareholder is selling its stake in Australia’s third-largest internet service provider for what it called a ‘‘significant value uplift’’ that would benefit both businesses.
Amcom Telecommunications
, which held 23.4 per cent, or 35.5 million shares, in its West Australian fellow telco, said on Friday it had sold 4.5 million shares and would distribute the remaining 31 million shares among its shareholders. Amcom, which provides corporate and wholesale services, bought into iiNet in 2006 at an average entry price of $1.14 per share. Amcom chief
Clive Stein
said the iiNet investment had delivered a ‘‘significant value uplift’’ but the two companies were targeting different segments of the market and had different growth strategies. A shareholder meeting scheduled for early August is to vote on the share distribution, where Amcom shareholders will receive one iinet share for every 23.2 Amcom shares held. Dominic White with AAP

ExxonMobil has scored a major fuel supply contract with the 7-Eleven retail chain, flying in the face of ongoing speculation it is set to retreat from the wholesale fuel market in Australia. The new contract will see the US major’s Mobil Oil Australia subsidiary supply all of 7-Eleven’s petrol and diesel requirements from January 1 next year, augmenting an existing deal it has to supply about 250 retail sites that it sold to the convenience store owner last year. The rest of 7-Eleven’s network of sites, amounting to about 400, is supplied by Shell, but that contract expires at the end of this year. The contract win will boost Mobil’s wholesale fuel sales in Australia and will have knock-on benefits for ExxonMobil’s Altona refinery near Melbourne, its only refinery in the country. Staff reporters

Iron ore junior
Brockman Resources
has buried the hatchet with Hong Kong’s Wah Nam International and will work with its new controlling shareholder to reach an investment decision on its $1.9 billion Marillana project in Western Australia by the end of the year. The two companies issued a joint statement on Friday outlining their strategy for Marillana and announcing the appointment of two Wah Nam representatives to the Brockman board. It was the first sign of acquiescence from Brockman since Wah Nam made an all-scrip takeover bid for the company in November. The bid closed on Wednesday with Wah Nam having acquired a 55.33 per cent interest in Brockman. The Hong Kong company has also made a scrip offer for another WA iron ore junior,
FerrAus
, and has plans to combine its assets with Brockman’s. No Brockman board members have resigned at this stage. Luke Forrestal

Some 1200 tradespeople went on strike yesterday at the Victorian desalination plant being constructed by a joint venture between Thiess, one of Leighton Holdings’ operating companies, and French water treatment group Degrémont. The strike comes amid a dispute between Thiess Degrémont and union management over which workers should be made redundant first as parts of the project are completed. The first redundancies were made yesterday. Unions want on-site representatives to be exempt from the discussions but Thiess does not believe they should be. “The process we have established for who will leave the project first is simple and fair," Thiess Degrémont said yesterday. Jenny Wiggins

US house starts rose 3.5 per cent on the previous month in May to 560,000. The figure exceeded many economists’ expectations of around 545,000. Permits were also higher on the prior month by 8.7 per cent to be up 5.2 per cent on the prior corresponding period. Goldman Sachs said while the May figure was encouraging, overall housing activity remained very low and housing starts and permits had been trending within a narrow range since 2009. Michael Hobbs

Gold could surge to about $US5000 an ounce by the end of the decade as demand for the precious metal is likely to be bolstered while incomes grow in big developing economies such as China and India. The bold forecast comes from investment bank Standard Chartered, which also expects demand to be bolstered as China and India’s central banks seek to diversify their reserves. The bank’s call is based on the relationship between the gold price and China and India’s average income over the past 30 years. Yvonne Ball